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    The first principle of the system is to shew the children gentleness and kindness , so as to win iheir affections , and always to treat them as rational creatures , cultivating their reason , and appealing to it . It w equally essential to impress upon their minds

    the necessity of industrious and virtuous conduct to their happiness , and the inevitable effects of the opposite behaviour , in reducing them from the comfort in which they now live to the state of misery from which they were rescued . A constant and even minute

    superintendence , at every instant of their lives , forms of course part of the system \ and , as may easily be supposed , the elder boys , who have already profited by the care of the master , aid him in extending it to the new comers , who for this purpose are judiciously distributed among them .

    These are , I am aware , very general principles , and upon their judicious application to practice in each particular instance , according to the diversities of individual character , their whole virtue depends . But a somewhat more specific notion of the plan may be formed by observing , that it is never allowed for a moment to be

    absent from their thoughts , that ma * nual labour , in cultivating the ground , is the grand and paramount care which must employ their whole lives , and upon which their very existence

    depends . To this every thing else is made subordinate ; but with this are judiciously connected a variety of intellectual pursuits . At their hours of relaxation , their amusements have

    an instructive tendency ; certain hours are set apart for the purposes of learning ; and while at work in the fields , the conversation , without interrupting for a moment the necessary business of their lives , is always directed towards those branches of knowledge

    in which they are improving themselves during the intervals of labour . Besides writing and ciphering ( at which they are very expert ) they apply themselves to geography and history , and to the different branches of

    natural history , particularly mineralogy and botany , in which they take a singular delight , and are considerable proficients . The connexion of these with agriculture render them most appropriate studies for those poor children 5 3 ii < l ? s their daily la-

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    bpur brings them constantly into contact with the objects of those sciences , a double relish is thus afforded at once to the science and the labour . You may see one of them every now and then stepping aside from the furrow where several of them have been working , to deposit a specimen , of a

    plant , for his little hortus siccus , or cabinet j and Mr . Fellenberg rarely goes into the field where any of them are labouring , without being called upon to decide some controversy that has arisen upon matters relating to mineralogy or botany , or the parts of ! chemical science which have

    mostimmecHate relation to agriculture . There is one other subject which is ever present to their minds : I mean a pure and rational theology . Mr . Fellenberg is deeply imbued himself with the sense of religion ; and it enters into all his schemes for the

    improvement of society . Regarding the state of misery in which the poorest classes live , a&rather calculated ( if I may use his own expression ) to make them believe in the agency of a devil than of a God , his first care , upon rescuing those children from that wretchedness ,

    is to inspire them with the feelings of devotion which he himself warmly entertains , and which he regards as natural to the human heart , whea misery has not chilled nor vice hardened it . Accordingly , the conversation , as well as the habits of the

    poor at Hofwyl , partake largely of religious influence . The evidences of design observable in the operations of nature , and the benevolent tendency of those operations in the great majority of instances , form constant topics of discourse in their studies , and

    during the labours of the day ; and though no one has ever observed the slightest appearance of fanaticism pr of superstition , ( against which , in truth , the course of instruction

    pursued is the surest safeguard , ) yet ample testimony is borne by all travellers to the prevailing piety of the place . One of these has noted au affecting instance of it , when the harvest once required the labourers to work for an hour or

    two after night-fall , and the full moon rose in extraordinary beauty over the magnificent mountains that surround the plain of Hofwyl . Suddenly , smsj if with one accord , the poor children began to chant a hyiuu which they

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    ilfr- Brougham ' s Description of HofwyL 731

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Dec. 2, 1818, page 731, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2483/page/3/